Hi, everyone. My house is surrounded by honeysuckles. It didn't bother me until they got big enough to kill all of the grass under them. Will anything grow under honeysuckles? I've just got dirt now. Patrick
Patrick there are lots of shade loving plants that would grow well under honeysuckle. I have polyanthus, various miniature bulbs and some ferns myself.
It may be tough to grow anything around them. Can you mulch the base of them with shredded bark mulch so that mowing the grass is easier around them? The taller varieties can get pretty leggy looking if they're not pruned regularly...but you can't beat the smell when they're blooming and you're sure to have hummingbirds around.
The honeysuckle here has taken over and choked out lots of the native brush. If you buy a honeysuckle please buy an american variety. Or whatever is native to your area.
I try to fight off honeysuckle as fast as I see it. i had some about eight years ago and I don't know what killed it but I don't miss it. I just enjoy the lovely fragrance of other people's from a distance. Try building up (ammending)the soil underneath the vine and experiment with some shade loving plants. There has to be one that loves a cozy environment.
We've got two, they were here when we bought the place. They're the wild variety and smell heavenly around mid-summer. One is by a stone fence underneath tall trees, and is the only thing growing there, so we're leaving it to do it's stuff. The other one is where a big thuja once lived. We've got ground cover and gravel around it, and prune it every year. We had sedums and sempervivums by its base, and that worked fine.
